10 Essential Cookbooks

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century (W. W. Norton, $40): Compiled by columnist Amanda Hesser, it includes more than 1,400 recipes that were fit to print, some dating back to the 1850s.

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Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck (Knopf, $40): A must-have since 1961.

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The Gourmet Cookbook: More Than 1,000 Recipes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $32): An exhaustive compendium of tempting recipes from around the world.

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $35): Modern, approachable, intelligent recipes for every day by the influential New York Times food columnist.

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The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with Nigel Slater (Gotham Books, $40): A lyrical yet practical day-by-day account of how the British food columnist shops, cooks, and eats. His mushroom lasagna is amazing.

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The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee (W. W. Norton, $35): The culinary siblings know their way around delectable regional fare. So much so that the James Beard Foundation named this Cookbook of the Year in 2007.

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The Conran Cookbook by Caroline Conran and Sir Terence Conran (Conran Octopus): Stylish, inspiring, and often daring—what else would you expect? This title is now out of print, but copies can easily be found on amazon.com.

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French Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herrmann Loomis (Workman): Charmingly written and absolutely foolproof, this is an earthy classic by an American Francophile who operates a cooking school in Normandy. It is out of print but available on amazon.com; Herrmann’s recipes can also be found on her website, onruetatin.com.